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‘People’s Republic of Desire’ explores streaming craze in China

David LewisDecember 4, 2018Updated: December 6, 2018, 1:13 pm

A scene from the documentary “People’s Republic of Desire.” Photo: Tripod Media

Equally fascinating, sad and scary, the documentary “People’s Republic of Desire” takes a deep dive into the vapid world of live streaming in China, where otherwise unremarkable people perform on a webcam to attract fans — and become high-paid superstars.

This is not exactly a foreign concept to the United States, but the Chinese take this internet craze to an entirely new level, with millions of young people, many of them poor, donating a lot of money to their favorite, usually untalented, webcam personality. Think of a service like Facebook Live — on steroids.

Director Hao Wu explores this concerning phenomenon in an in-depth, visually arresting way, with eye-popping graphics. We meet the performers, their handlers, their families and, perhaps most interestingly, their fans — many of whom appear to have no outside interests other than tuning in to see what their favorite “entertainers” are doing online.

The stars of the documentary are two live-streaming celebrities: Shen Man, who sings (Lady Gaga has nothing to worry about) and makes self-deprecating remarks about her appearance (when she’s not under the plastic surgeon’s knife); and Big Li, who tells jokes and yearns to win a contest to see which performer can get the most fans to open their wallets. Both Big Li and Shen Man appeal to ordinary people — mainly because of their own ordinariness – but we still feel gloom about the emptiness of their lives.

And therein lies the frightening undercurrent of this film: The warp-speed change of Chinese society, fueled by urban migration and the insidious lure of technology, has helped create a generation of lonely youths who are either the haves or have-nots. The virtual world is supposed to be their solace, but it only reinforces their isolation.